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Baldur's Gate Enhanced dev Beamdog seeks beta testers for new game

Dec 22, 2016

Beamdog, the studio behind the Enhanced Editions of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, and more recently Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear, apparently has something new on the go. It's not ready to reveal the name just yet (or anything else about the game, for that matter) but it is in the market for beta testers.

It sounds like this will be a proper beta test, rather than merely a couple of weeks of pre-release publicity. Applicants chosen to take part will have to sign a non-disclosure agreement, which will (technically, at least) bar them from talking about the game. Once the requisite paperwork is taken care of, information about the new project and access to the "super-secret forum" will be passed along.

"When testing our game you will be able to give all the feedback you want, file bug reports, and make feature requests," Beamdog said. "It will be invaluable to us and will help to make the final product as good as possible."

And the recruitment message does actually contain a little bit of a hint as to what might be in store: It says Beamdog is looking for "adventurers, warriors, rogues, wizards, druids, clerics, rangers, monks, and shamans" who want to take part. Another journey through the Sword Coast, maybe—or perhaps even points further north? You can sign up to find out before everyone else at the Beamdog forums.

From the very first moment you meet it, Icewind Dale grumbles through its frozen beard that I am going to be a old-fashioned pen and paper RPG . It starts as your six adventurers, drinking around a table in the tavern of Easthaven, are approached by a mysterious stranger to go on a quest… cue a ramble across Icewind Dale, the frozen north of Faerun, the land of the Forgotten Realms book series, with a plot that acts a preamble to R.A. Salvatore s so-so Icewind Dale trilogy.

For those who ve not played it, Icewind Dale is an infinity engine game, just like Baldur s Gate and Planescape Torment. Yet, where those games had epic branching storylines and finely-sketched characters, Icewind Dale is more restricted in its ambitions. Similarly, the Enhanced Edition is more limited in its additions.

This version is a minor improvement on the previously complete edition of Icewind Dale (available from GOG). It adds a touch of cut content (restored mainly thanks to a persistent modding community called Gibberlings) and imports the much larger variety of equipment, classes and class kits from Baldur s Gate. There are also useful additions like the ability to skip dialogue, an essential loot-finder tool, and a zoom function so you can fit more of the game s beautiful hand-drawn backgrounds on your screen. Finally, there s a new cross-platform multiplayer mode, allowing you to play with friends on their phones and tablets.

Anyway, following on that mysterious quest in a pub RPG promise, Icewind Dale is as close to Diablo as Baldur s Gate. Much of the game is spent killing. Killing skeletons, yetis, orcs, goblin, giants, thieves, umber hulks, salamanders, trolls, monks, golems, zombies, lizardmen, yuan-ti, mummies, shadows and liches. Amongst others. Unlike modern games, they really didn t skimp on the monster types in ye olde days, and there are several tough battles that will require careful planning and character management to survive.

Where they did skimp was on the characters. Unlike the earlier infinity engine games, you don t get interactive characters or inter-party dialogue or plot from your party members here, nor can you recruit more as the game goes by. You generate them right at the start, use pre-generated ones, or import ones from other games. It s recommended you start with six new characters, but given the way it doles out experience, it s perfectly plausible to start with just one or two and level them up fast.

These characters of yours travel out from the great druidic tree of Kuldahar to explore why its warming aura is fading in the snowbound lands of Icewind Dale. Though in description the story seems rich enough, it mainly consists of killing lots of people in a whistle stop tour of Faerun s minority factions. Occasionally, you get to talk to them before you kill them. Thankfully, there are the usual endless Black Isle sidequests, varying from rebuilding an Elven arboretum to repeatedly rescuing villagers, which add a little more flavour to the world. Black Isle s (Obisidian s) dialogue is as witty as ever, and the depth of NPC responses to different character classes adds to the already-enormous replay value - though given the weakness of the story, we d balk at playing it on the Story mode where your party is invulnerable.

There are other, minor problems. I never understood the D&D THACO combat system and it s still obscure and unexplained here. Though the imbalances in it are fun, being unable to kill a boss because none of my magic weapons are +3 is daft. Similarly, though the new autoloot helps with finding items on the ground, you ll still have to pixelhunt to find switches and crucial loot containers. And quicksave before each battle, because the jaunt to find a priest to resurrect a fallen character is always tedious and autosaves aren t generous.

The biggest problem with this Extended Edition is that the original, despite being slightly buggy, is still completely playable, especially the GOG edition; this isn t one of our much-vaunted treasures like Ultima Underworld or Arcanum: Of Steamworks Obscura that simply aren t much fun to play these days because of interface, control and/or resolution issues. The infinity engine established many of the modern expectations for RPGs, so it s not surprising that a later game like this still just works. One suspects that this version has been rejigged mostly so it can be released on iPad, and the PC release is an incidental benefit.

Yet, despite being only a minor advance, this is certainly the definitive version of Icewind Dale. That itself is a fun, tough quest that brings back nostalgia for the beauty of the engine and combat system of those days. That makes it a nice stopgap between here and Eternity.

PC Gamer

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Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition will be out this month

Oct 21, 2014

If it seems like just last month that Beamdog announced Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition, well, that would be incorrect: It was actually August 30, which technically makes it two months ago. But more important than the announcement date is the release date, which we now have.

Without much fanfare Beamdog boss Trent Oster wrote last night on Twitter: "Oh we also announced a launch date for #IWDEE of Oct 30. That's right, just 10 more days to go."

In follow-up tweets, Oster said the game will be released on Beamdog's own platform, as well as GOG and Steam, for both Windows and Linux. "The mobile versions should be very close as well," he added.

The announcement of Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition wasn't really a surprise, given the success of the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Editions, but it was still happy news for old-time RPG fans. The updated game will include an improved interface, cross-platform multiplayer, a new difficulty mode that will allow players to experience the story without having to struggle through repeated beat-downs, six expanded quests with content that was cut from the original game, and new items, spells, and class and kit combinations.

The originals are still available and can be souped up pretty well with external mods, but for gamers who either aren't comfortable with that sort of horsing around or just don't want to be bothered, the Enhanced Editions are a good way to go. Unfortunately, making more of them might be a problem: The dramatic changes made to the remaining Infinity Engine RPGs, Icewind Dale II and Planescape: Torment, "would invalidate all the character classes and require a pretty thorough rework of the entire game to bring in the features from our Infinity Plus Engine," Oster said last month. "At minimum, nightmares abound."

PC Gamer

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Beamdog boss on why making Icewind Dale II would create "nightmares"

Oct 1, 2014

The Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition was announced in August, a good but not entirely surprising bit of news given the success of its enhanced Baldur's Gate predecessors. But in spite of that obvious progression and the hope it engenders for future Infinity Engine overhauls, Enhanced Editions of Icewind Dale 2 or Planescape: Torment aren't a sure thing.

The problem, Beamdog co-founder Trent Oster told RPGamer, is that Icewind Dale II is dramatically different from the first game, both inside and out. "If Icewind Dale is a brother or sister to the Baldur's Gate games in terms of code and gameplay differences, Icewind Dale II and Planescape: Torment are more like third cousins. You can see the lineage, but the changes are deep," he said.

"Icewind Dale II implemented the 3rd Edition rules and has a completely different UI scheme. We're really not sure how deep those changes run," Oster explained. "The move to 3rd Edition rules would invalidate all the character classes and require a pretty thorough rework of the entire game to bring in the features from our Infinity Plus Engine. At minimum, nightmares abound."

The original Icewind Dale uses AD&D Second Edition rules, as does Planescape: Torment. The Third Edition rule set, which actually dropped the "Advanced" designator, was released in 2000, the same year as Icewind Dale; Icewind Dale II came out in 2002.

It's far from a flat-out "no," and Oster said the team plans to dig deeper into the matter after the launch of Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition and the 1.3 update for the Baldur's Gate games, but "nightmares abound" isn't the sort of thing you want to hear regarding the likelihood of your favorite game being remade. On the slightly-brighter side, depending on how you view such a thing, Oster said the team still talks about Baldur's Gate III on a "pretty regular basis."

PC Gamer

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Beamdog boss on why making Icewind Dale II would create "nightmares"

Oct 1, 2014

The Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition was announced in August, a good but not entirely surprising bit of news given the success of its enhanced Baldur's Gate predecessors. But in spite of that obvious progression and the hope it engenders for future Infinity Engine overhauls, Enhanced Editions of Icewind Dale 2 or Planescape: Torment aren't a sure thing.

The problem, Beamdog co-founder Trent Oster told RPGamer, is that Icewind Dale II is dramatically different from the first game, both inside and out. "If Icewind Dale is a brother or sister to the Baldur's Gate games in terms of code and gameplay differences, Icewind Dale II and Planescape: Torment are more like third cousins. You can see the lineage, but the changes are deep," he said.

"Icewind Dale II implemented the 3rd Edition rules and has a completely different UI scheme. We're really not sure how deep those changes run," Oster explained. "The move to 3rd Edition rules would invalidate all the character classes and require a pretty thorough rework of the entire game to bring in the features from our Infinity Plus Engine. At minimum, nightmares abound."

The original Icewind Dale uses AD&D Second Edition rules, as does Planescape: Torment. The Third Edition rule set, which actually dropped the "Advanced" designator, was released in 2000, the same year as Icewind Dale; Icewind Dale II came out in 2002.

It's far from a flat-out "no," and Oster said the team plans to dig deeper into the matter after the launch of Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition and the 1.3 update for the Baldur's Gate games, but "nightmares abound" isn't the sort of thing you want to hear regarding the likelihood of your favorite game being remade. On the slightly-brighter side, depending on how you view such a thing, Oster said the team still talks about Baldur's Gate III on a "pretty regular basis."